340 Frontier in Space Episode Three

EPISODE: Frontier in Space: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 340
STORY NUMBER: 067
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 10 March 1973
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Paul Bernard
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Dalek War: Frontier in Space & Planet of the Daleks
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"After they'd attacked the cargo ships, the Ogrons returned to their planet, taking their loot with them. Now imagine my surprise, and my delight, when I found that they'd brought me the Doctor's Tardis!"

The Doctor & Jo escape from the Ogrons during the attack and are re-imprisoned. General Williams tries to coerce the President into action against the Draconians by intimating she will be replace. The Doctor is subjected to the mind probe which says he is telling the truth. Williams still doesn't believe him, turning up the power on the mind probe which blows up. The Doctor is taken to the President and sentenced to the lunar penal colony. The Doctor immediately falls out with another prisoner Cross, who works as a trustee. The commissioner from Sirius-4 arrives requesting the transfer of The Doctor & Jo for crimes committed there: It's the Master. The Doctor starts planning his escape with a fellow prisoner, Professor Dale. The Master collects Jo from the prison to his space ship and leaves for the moon to get the Doctor. He is behind the Ogrons and was very surprised when they brought him the Doctor's Tardis. Cross gives Dale information about how to escape which he tells the Doctor allowing the two to leave together. They are to steal spacesuits and walk across the moon to a waiting ship. However when they enter the airlock they find their oxygen cylinders empty, and someone has started the decompression sequence.

Oh look, it's the Master. What a surprise! Actually it is here somewhat: the presence of the Ogrons makes you think their masters the Daleks can't be far behind so to have The Master show up isn't expected!

JO: You! What are you doing here?
MASTER: To coin a phrase. I've come to take you away from all this.
JO: What are you talking about?
MASTER: Well, surely you don't want to spend the rest of your life in here, do you?
JO: Well, I'm not going anywhere with you, that's for sure.
MASTER: Oh, but you are, you know. Believe it or not, I am a fully accredited Commissioner from the planet Sirius 4, and you and the Doctor are two dangerous criminals being handed over into my custody.
JO: So it was you! You ordered those Ogrons to attack the ships and pretend they were Draconians!
MASTER: But of course. Those lumbering idiots could never have thought up such a brilliant scheme by themselves.
JO: Why did you want to start a war?
MASTER: Now, come on, Miss Grant, be reasonable. You want to see the Doctor again, don't you?
JO: Where is he?
MASTER: He's in another prison, on the moon. We're going to collect him.
JO: How do I know you're telling the truth?
MASTER: You don't. And the only way you'll find out is by coming with me. Well?
JO: How did you know we were here in the first place?
MASTER: Well, after they'd attacked the cargo ships, the Ogrons returned to their planet, taking their loot with them. Now imagine my surprise, and my delight, when I found that they'd brought me the Doctor's Tardis.
JO: And why are you taking us with you?
MASTER: Oh, need you ask? How could I leave two dear friends in such dire straights?
JO: Oh, you don't seriously think that I'm going to believe that you want to help us
MASTER: Believe what you like, Miss Grant. I have my reasons. Now, are you coming, or do you really wish to vegetate in this hole for the rest of your natural?
JO: Very well. I'll come.
MASTER: Excellent! The prisoner and I are ready to leave now, guard.

What's otherwise a bit of a slow episode, low on the action, is livened up for just a little bit by dropping The Master into proceedings as Roger Delgado gives his usual excellent performance. There's a nice little replay of the action in episode 1 on a black & white TV screen during the Doctor's interrogation by the Mind Probe (No, Not the Mind Probe!!!!)

WILLIAMS: Well, Doctor, shall we try again?
DOCTOR: You can suit yourself. But I warn you, you're wasting your time.
WILLIAMS: Are you a member of the Draconian secret service?
DOCTOR: No.
TECHNICIAN: No change in the rhythm, sir. He must be telling the truth.
WILLIAMS: How did you get on the cargo ship?
DOCTOR: I came here in my own ship, the Tardis.
WILLIAMS: Tardis?
DOCTOR: Yes, my own spaceship.
(The monitor shows the Tardis whirling through space.)
WILLIAMS: Why did you help the Draconians attack the cargo ship?
DOCTOR: I didn't. In any case, it wasn't the Draconians, it was the Ogrons.
WILLIAMS: Your machine can't be working properly, or else he's controlling it.
TECHNICIAN: I've checked all the circuits, sir. Those are his thoughts.
WILLIAMS: We know that this man is a Draconian agent. He must be lying.
TECHNICIAN: Perhaps he's already been brainwashed, sir. But as far as he's concerned, what he's telling us is the truth.
WILLIAMS: Then we must break through his conditioning. Unless you tell me the truth, the real truth, I shall be forced to use increased power.
DOCTOR: I wouldn't do that, old man. I know these machines. They aren't awfully reliable, you know.
WILLIAMS: You'd do better to worry about the effect on your mind.
DOCTOR: There's just no telling some people, is there, my dear.
WILLIAMS: Step up the power. Increase to twelve. Now! Are you an agent of the Draconians?
DOCTOR: No.
WILLIAMS: When do they plan to attack us?
DOCTOR: They don't.
WILLIAMS: How did you board the cargo ship?
DOCTOR: In the Tardis.
WILLIAMS: Who first recruited you to serve the Draconians?
DOCTOR: No one.
WILLIAMS: Who are the other Draconian agents on Earth?
DOCTOR: I don't know.
WILLIAMS: The truth, man. I want the truth!
DOCTOR: I'm telling you the truth.
WILLIAMS: I will get the truth!

At which point the machine overloads and The Doctor is returned to his cell!

JO: Doctor? Are you sure you're all right?
DOCTOR: Mmm hmm. Apart from a bit of a headache. I like the new outfit. Who are you fighting tonight?

You are left wondering about where Jo's been able to get a new outfit from when she turns up in the black Kung-Fu gear but I suspect it's prison clothes: compare with the outfits the lunar prisoners are wearing, albeit in a different colour and fabric.

I did laugh when the lunar prisoners were served their drinks as they appear to be drinking out of babies sippy cups!

Which brings us back to our imprisoned stakes (currently at 6) We'll ignore being captured by the Ogrons as they don't actually get to sling them in a cell!

7) Thrown back in cell - Jo's there for most of the episode while the Doctor is mind probed and taken to the president.
8) Doctor taken to lunar penal colony
9) Doctor locked in airlock

We're into the second recording block for the series so we get treated to some new actors, several of whom are imprisoned on the Moonbase.

Harold Goldblatt plays Professor Dale. He'd previously been in Pathfinders in Space as Dr. O'Connell. More on this series, and in particular it's sequel, over the next few weeks.

Madhav Sharma plays Patel and although this is his only Doctor Who appearance he has a semi regular role in Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks' Moonbase 3 playing Rao in Departure and Arrival, Outsiders and Castor and Pollux. Frontier in Space is generally seen as a rehearsal for Moonbase 3 and oddly enough when I dug out the Doctor Who Magazine Third Doctor Special Edition to check something to do with this story I discovered an advert for The Moonbase on DVD on the back! He appears in the missing third season Doomwatch episode Deadly Dangerous Tomorrow as Hanif Khan and in The Sweeney episode Golden Fleece as Earle .

Caroline Hunt, the Mind Probe Technician was previously Danielle Renan in The Reign of Terror. She appears in Fahrenheit 451 as Helen.

The President's secretary, previously only seen in a tiny screen on her desk, is played by Karol Hagar has no further association with Doctor Who.

Luan Peters is Sheila, the President's assistant who is massaging her. She's been in Doctor Who before as Chicki in The Macra Terror (in which she was credited as Karol Keyes) but here gets all of her lines cut. She was meant to tell us that he young General Williams had destroyed a Draconian battle-cruiser – not realising that it was unarmed, and merely being used to transport the Draconian envoy. The plot point will resurface later.

Elsewhere she appears in The Professionals as the Lady in Sports Car in Heroes and as Raylene Miles in the Fawlty Towers episode The Psychiatrist.

I can't find anything else that the speaking Earth Prison Guard Ian Yardley has been in but his speaking counterpart on the moon, Lunar Guard Laurence Harrington had previously been Mr Kerr & the Transport Voice in The Mind of Evil. He later turns up in The Sweeney episode Visiting Fireman as a Lawyer and in two Space: 1999 episodes: Journey to Where, where he plays, Jackson, and The Dorcons, where he's Stewart. He also has recurring role as Cyril in Jon Pertwee's Worzel Gummidge

There's three non speaking Lunar Guards in this episode & the next: Leslie Bates is also a Draconian in episode 5 and one of Williams’ Guard in episode 6. Previously he cast the shadow that falls across the Tardis at the end of the first episode, An Unearthly Child and then played a Tribesman in the second, The Cave of Skulls. He's a Man at Lop, Mongol Warrior and Mongol Bandit in Marco Polo, a Guard in The Massacre, a Villager at Inn / Pirate in The Smugglers, an English Soldier in The Highlanders, an IE Guard in The Invasion, an 1862 soldier, Confederate Soldier, foot soldier in The War Games, a Waxworks Visitor/Auton in Spearhead from Space, a BBC3 TV Crewmember in The Dæmons and a UNIT soldier in The Three Doctors. He returns as an Army Corporal & UNIT soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, an Exxilon in Death to the Daleks, a Guard in Planet of the Spiders, a Time Lord in Deadly Assassin and a Bi-Al Member in Invisible Enemy. In the The Andromeda Breakthrough he was a British Soldier in Gale Warning, in Doomwatch he was a man in Hear No Evil, The Islanders & Flood and in Moonbase 3 he's a Technician in Castor and Pollux. He's also in our favourite Adam Adamant Lives! episode D for Destruction as a TA Soldier.

Richard King likewise turns up as a Draconian Emperor Guard in episode 5 and a Williams’ Guard in episode 6. He'd previously been a Monk in Abominable Snowmen, a Cyberman in The Invasion, an Alien Technician in The War Games, Passengers/Plague Victims/Passersby/Ambulance Men/Policemen & a Technician in Doctor Who and the Silurians and a Technician in Inferno. He returns as a UNIT Soldier Typist Invasion of the Dinosaurs, a Technician in Android Invasion and a Time Lord in Deadly Assassin. In Doomwatch he's a Man in In the Dark and in Moonbase 3 he's a Technician in Castor and Pollux & View of a Dead Planet

Steve Tierney, like Leslie Bates & Richard King, is a 3, Draconian Emperor Guard in episode 5 and a Williams’ Guard in episode 6. He's only other appearance in as a Technician Inferno. However I have some doubt as to if most of the other entries on his IMDB page, which are nearly 40 years later in the US, are the same man and also suspect that he might be the similarly named Harry Tierney who was working as an extra on Doctor Who at around this time. I will consult with m'learned colleagues.....

There's also a number of supporting artists plying Prisoners: In order of first appearance in the series: John Moore was one of the People in Square of Troy and later plays a Technician in Pirate Planet. He's also Vanderlyn in The Curse of the Daleks stage play. In Out of the Unknown he was Matthias Granger in Thirteen to Centaurus, and in Porridge he played Spider in A Storm in a Teacup.

Michael Mulcaster was a Highlander in Jail in The Highlanders, and returns as the dying Old Duke in The Masque of Mandragora Part One. In Doomwatch he was a Businessman in The Devil's Sweets, a Tribunal Member in You Killed Toby Wren, a Man in Flight Into Yesterday & Public Enemy and the Governor in Fire and Brimstone.

Nancy Gabrielle was a Woman in Inn in the Highlanders while John Hughman returns as a Robot in Time Warrior. He has an association with Monty Python's Flying Circus playing multiple rolls in the series and then appearing in Time Bandits as The Great Rumbozo and Jabberwocky as the King's Valet.

Nelly Griffiths returns as a Death Grade in The Sunmakers. She was in A for Andromeda as a Nurse in The Murderer. Dana Michie is a Marine Guard in Warriors of the Deep and played Canary in the Red Dwarf episode Cassandra. Jean St Louis was in the Doomwatch episode The Killer Dolphins (1972) as a Woman at Palazzo.

We're entering a run of stories that all use at least one of the most common words in Doctor Who titles. Here it's Space as used in:

The Sensorites #1: Strangers in Space
The Space Museum #1: The Space Museum
The Wheel in Space
The Space Pirates
Spearhead from Space
Colony in Space
Frontier in Space
The Ark in Space

Easy to use: Find something, say it's in Space. Job done. Come back for more of the same during the next few stories.